Quenching- Oil and Water

[D7reamers]

A friend of mine is planning to re-forge a sword that was oil quenched.
Scary thing is that he think all oil is the same and is going to use used motor oil and I think he will ruin his sword!!!


What kind of oil should and could be used to quench a blade in before he does this?

And out of wonder,
What is advanages and drawbacks about quenching a sword in oil and quenching a sword in water?

 

[peter nap]

I use burned motor oil sometimes and it is not a bad quench for a lot of steel. It is a fairly fast quench so he should try to determine the type of steel. It will also flash pretty quickly so be ready. A word of WARNING....a lot of new swordmakers and some older ones like me that are too stupid to learn from their mistakes...try to use motor oil in pipes 2-3" for swords. This will almost always result in the flaming volcano of death and ruined work. If he decides to use it get a 55 gal drum and fill it with enough oil to quench. If he wants to edge quench, cut the barrel in half lengthways and use it that way. Do not use a pipe.

 

[Taz]

What style sword? japanese or reg double edge? Why is he reforging it and requenching it? Who made the sword originally? If you talk to the oriog maker, they might be able to give you some info.

will it need to be annealed/normalized first? If he is going to reforge the thing, this is going to be a process, with packing the steel, etc. has he ever forged before? How is he going to get to critical heat thru the whole length? Hopefully he has a forge big enough to accomadate the blade and control the heat.

Size of the sword and steel? O-1, 1050, 5160, L6, etc. Some react differently to water vs oil.

Oil gets most blades nice and hard, with a fine grain structure. Normalize the blade 3 times first, then do the HT. Thisd reduced the grain size further for most steels.

Water, VERY fast quench, can curve steel with an edge quench, kinda like a japanese sword, but they also had clay backing, too. Can be too fast, and cause the blade to crack, but the grain can also be very fine. May not make for as tough of a blade as an oil quench for some steels.


The biggest question is what steel is it? Diff steels react to quenching differently, and react to forging differently.

Motor oil, or almost any oil is ok for oil quenching. the quenching oil generally has a higher flashpoint to limit some of the flame up. Maybe try Goddards goop. parafin, beeswax and ATF IIRC.


Just some things to get you thinking. Sorry..i had 3 hours of sleep last night, then track practice at 7am..I hope this makes sense!!

 

[D7reamers]

It a re-actment styled rapier, called a Scholter blade, cost about 60 dollars and was made in germany.
He plans to put a point on it, but I don't think he has ever forged anything like this before.

 

[peter nap]

Hate to burst your friends bubble but a $60.00 sword is most likely made with low carbon steel. I expect he would harden it as much quenching it unheated as to go to the trouble of HT'ing it.